Writing has a unique quality that was discovered many centuries ago. I’m referring to the power of writing to make clear to oneself one’s innermost thoughts and emotions. Journalling is like excavating one’s deepest thoughts and emotions. Writing down these thoughts and emotions forces one to process these difficult emotions and thoughts and memories. This deep dive processing of one’s hidden feelings, thoughts and memories is often called journaling.
Often keeping a journal can be as simple as writing down a sentence or short paragraph to describe the significant events of each day. However, if you want to exorcise some personal demons, it requires a more substantial amount of words than just a sentence or mere paragraph. Confronting the ghosts that haunt one requires deep questioning, repetitive questions, and possibly pages upon pages of written introspection. However, the highly self-aware might be able to do it in one writing page (that is 500 words or thereabouts).
When to start journaling
What may prompt a session of deep-dive journaling could be an unpleasant experience, the memory of an unpleasant experience, or the arising of unpleasant feelings with no apparent cause. These feelings with unknown reasons require a deep introspection to unearth the memory or programming that instills specific negative thoughts that lead to the arising of emotions that feel yucky, unpleasant, dark, energy-zapping, or even dreadful. Thus excavating journaling can be incredibly cathartic.
